in 1975, when we had our first home birth i knew NO ONE who had done this except for my grandmothers and a book i read…but i knew it was possible and a good thing. you all are so lucky to have modern technology to help you and the internet to connect you. 35 years later my 2 homebirths are my shining moments as a woman, wife and mother <3

This post made me a little emotional! I LOVE home birth! I wish I could talk everyone into it! It’s SUCH a beautiful thing! I want to have a hundred babies so I can give birth at home a hundred times….but I don’t think I could handle that many babies when they’re born…or a hundred pregnancies haha!

Wonderful! I just wish more women of color would speak up and make themselves known for things like this. Had I known about this, I’d definitely submit a pic for it. People need to see that Black women give birth at home as well.

Just to clarify – the reason why it helped me – was just the idea of her as displayed in the media at least – being plastic and not natural at all and yet she was able to birth both her kids at home – allowed me to overcome my self doubt.

I’m so sad that this may never be an option for me. The nearest midwives to me live 45+ minutes away, and that’s on a good day with no construction or other issues – and public aid in my state (which hopefully we’ll be off of by the time we have another child; we’re preventing naturally right now!) does not cover the assistance of a midwife. Both my children were uneventful, low-risk pregnancies born with an OB in a hospital, and I genuinely feel I am lucky that despite the number of interventions used in my labors, I have not yet had a c-section.
I want desperately to become a midwife myself, but I am absolutely terrified of the ramifications of that ONE labor that for whatever reason goes bad – even if the family didn’t blame me, I would probably blame myself, and I know that. So for now I’m settling with working toward becoming a birth doula, and am a natural birth advocate.

@KAS: Don’t give up hope for a home birth! 45 minutes is usually plenty of time for your midwife to get to you when you are in labor. And there are plenty of babies who decided to come before the midwife arrived, but she was able to talk the husband through delivery and took over as soon as she got there. Our midwife talked us through the scenario during prenatal visits and we were very close to having to do it without her there, but she made it in time. I just held my baby in for 20 minutes through breathing techniques (and by holding a towel between my legs – haha i know that doesn’t hold a baby in but it made me feel much better).

So well done, love seeing my pic up there. My homebirth with my second baby was such an eye opening experience. I had a straightforward hospital birth with my first but it does not even come close to the feelings of power, love, strength, joy and courage that my home water birth brought out in me. It forced me to face all my deepest fears and to punch straight through them. I can look back at that day for the rest of my life and know that I did it MYSELF.
Well done all you beautiful mamas

Nice collection of beautiful women/men and babies. I had 3 hospital births, the 3rd a c-section, then went on to have 7 home births. The last 4 were unassisted. At any moment now I will get the call to assist at my 1st grandchilds birth at home.

I have birthed at home as well! <3 Twice! Just had my baby 3 months ago, in my tub. @KAS, at my first homebirth (of my 5th child) my MW lived 45 mins away on a good day. My latest babe (6th baby) my MW lived 1.5 hours away. We moved to the remote Colorado Rocky mts and that was our only option…or drive 2.5 hrs to the nearest hospital. Trust your body, trust in birth. I have had 6 kids vaginally w/ no problems. The risks and "what ifs" are so low…45 mins is really not that far after all. <3

And here are some other well known people that have home birthed, Meryl Streep
Demi Moore
Lisa Bonet
Pamela Anderson (also a big BFing advocate)
Jade Jagger
kelly preston, Felicity Huffman and Asia Carrera. Oh and me but I’m not well known lol

Why do you need a midwife? I was cut open for my first child in a military hospital, and went on to have my next 2 babies at home with just my family – no midwife. Do your research and the inner work and you can do it too. Any woman can do it if she believes she can. Birthing at home was the best experience of my life and I got my power back. No doubt.

Absolutely beautiful. If I would have been more in the know how to all this when I had my children I would have definitely gone this route. Know one of the couples above and I know they had a WONDERFUL experience and their kids are precious!

i love woman that give birht at home i only wish that i could but both of my birhts has been really bad my frist birht was three and a halfs early and she only weight 5lbs and 14 ozs my second birht was really bad to he was born only 9 days early and he weight 5 lbs 5 ozs. and 18 inches long he had water around his heart. A nd when i had him he had to be flight rushed to morgantown because he almost died on us he had to stay up there in the nicu for 5 days after he was born .

My little girl she was born with a birht defect she was born three and half weeks early and only weight 5 lbs 14 ozs and 19 1/2 inches long i had gest. deiabtes. when i found out that i was going to have another baby i was really happy cause it was a boy but then it all truned out bad because when i was around 7 1/2 months i had to go for my urtla sound and they found that he had water around his heart but then we had to go up to morgantown to have it re checked and i was really happy becuse he didnt have water around his heart anymore he was find but when i went in to have him it didnt trun out like i would have hoped he was only 1 day old when they had to flight rush him to morgantown because his heart almost stop beating on us he had to spent the first 5 days of his little life in the NICU when i had him he only weight 5 lbs 5 ozs 18 inches long .

We are fighting in SD to make it legal to have a CPM (certified proffessional midwife) at our homebirths. I finally got the birth I wanted with my last baby. Of course, it happened out of hospital. If you feel the need to help us, please write a little note to one of our SD legislatures.

Loved this site! Pro home birth needs to get put out there more. 2 months ago I had my third baby and third home birth and loved it! I don’t want to have my children anywhere else. I had them where I wanted and had who I wanted there. I don’t consider myself a “brave” woman as some people have said when I tell them that I have home births, I have just simply made an educated decision and through experience found that this is the most loving and gentle way for my children to be born. Go 100% natural–Go home birth!

[...] this is because of the photo challenge “What Does a Homebirth Mama Look Like?” from Bring Birth Home and because of writing my own birth story. I had the blessing of an empowered birth. Am I somehow [...]